From The Associated Press, 11/2/05:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/28-11022005-563943.html
Steven Griles to Testify in Lobbyist Probe
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -
Senators investigating an indicted lobbyist's work for Indian tribes
and his ties with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other
lawmakers want to hear from a former Interior Department official
about contacts concerning tribal casinos.
Steven Griles, himself a former lobbyist who resigned last December as
deputy interior secretary, and leaders of a Louisiana tribe that paid
lobbyist Jack Abramoff and an associate $32 million were to testify
Wednesday before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Griles is the most senior Bush administration official drawn into an
investigation by the Senate committee's chairman, Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., on what Abramoff and associate Mike Scanlon did to earn the
$80 million they were paid by six Indian tribes.
Scanlon is a former spokesman for DeLay, who stepped down as House
majority leader in September after he was indicted in Texas on state
felony charges of conspiracy and laundering campaign funds.
The charges against DeLay are not related to the Senate probe.
The hearing, the fourth by McCain into Abramoff's lucrative lobbying
practice on behalf of Indian tribes and their casino ventures, also
will include testimony from Kevin Sickey, chairman of Louisiana's
Coushatta tribe.
The Associated Press reported last spring that Abramoff had extensive
access to Bush administration officials, including Griles, while he
worked with the lobbying firm of Greenberg Traurig.
Abramoff's lobbying work is being examined in a separate Justice
Department investigation.
He has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida on charges of
fraud and conspiracy stemming from his role in the 2000 purchase of a
fleet of gambling boats.
Another former Bush administration official, David Safavian, who was
chief of staff of the General Services Administration, the
government's procurement arm, was charged this fall with making false
statements and obstructing a federal investigation of a 2002 golf
outing to Scotland that Abramoff took with Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and
others.
The Coushattas hired Abramoff and Scanlon's lobbying services to help
thwart the Jena Choctaws, another Louisiana tribe, from opening its
own casino.
As part of the effort, Abramoff directed the Coushattas to made
contributions to political committees and conservative groups.
The tribe donated $45,000 to DeLay's national political fundraising
committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, and another $10,000 to
Texans for a Republican Majority, also founded by DeLay and now at the
center the Texas campaign finance investigation involving him.
The tribe was told to void the contributions to ARMPAC and TRMPAC and
reissue them to two other Republican-aligned groups.
Invoices obtained by the AP last summer showed the Coushattas were
charged $185,000 for use of a Washington arena skybox Abramoff had
leased.
In 2000, DeLay treated some of his donors to a performance of the
Three Tenors opera singers in Abramoff's skybox.
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And on and on and on
Harry
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